Owaisi brothers appear before court in 2005 case

Sangareddy, Andhra Pradesh: Jailed MIM legislator Akbaruddin Owaisi, his elder brother Asaduddin and four other party MLAs appeared before a court in Sangareddy on Friday in an eight-year-old case of 'preventing' government officials from doing their duties.

While Akbaruddin, who is lodged in the Adilabad district jail in connection with the Nirmal 'hate speech' case was brought by police to Sangareddy town and produced before the court, his elder brother Asaduddin and other MIM legislators presented themselves before the court.

The Owaisi brothers had filed a review petition in court on February 6, contending that they were not directly involved in obstructing officials and their names were unnecessarily being dragged into the case.

The judicial magistrate court had examined the Owaisi brothers and the four party MLAs on January 28.

As the petition was still pending, counsels of the Owaisi's sought postponement of the matter, after which the court adjourned the case to February 22.

The Owaisi brothers and others including the four MIM MLAs were booked by Patancheru police in Medak for allegedly obstructing the then Medak district collector and other government officials from discharging their duties in 2005.

The case was registered on a complaint by a revenue official that MIM chief Asaduddin, his brother Akbaruddin and others had protested demolition of a place of worship at Muttangi village near Patancheru during a road widening work on the Hyderabad-Mumbai National Highway.

It was alleged that they were involved in heated arguments with then Medak district collector A K Singhal and other officers during the protest and Owaisi brothers pushed the collector.

Of the 30 accused in this case, the trial had begun against 24, while it was yet to begin against the Owaisi brothers and the four MIM legislators, since they had not attended court proceedings earlier.